Flight into Fantasy

Title: Dishes
Author: Rich Wallace
Genre: Contemporary YA fiction
Source: Bookshare
Reason for Reading: I’ve been on a contemporary YA kick lately, and I was still looking for fast reads for the holiday weekend. Plus, the synopsis struck me as interesting.
Synopsis:

Ogunquit, Maine. That’s not where you’d expect to find a guy like Danny. He’s not a tourist. He’s not a local. And he’s definitely not gay. As far as he can tell, only he and the bartender at “Dishes”, where he works as a dishwasher, are straight. But that’s not what bothers Danny. What bothers him is that he’s got straight-guy problems in a very gay town. While he’s hitting on a cute waitress, the cute waiters are hitting on him. And could the cute waitress have a thing for his thirty-six-year-old dad? It’s one crazy summer in a crazy Maine town.

My Thoughts: This story was charming. That’s really the best way to describe it. It’s not full of action-packed twists and turns, but it does contain likeable characters with plenty of depth. I liked Danny, our narrator, a lot. He’s a straight guy in a small town, and he’s spending time with his dad while he tries to figure out what he wants out of life. His struggles felt real and authentic, and there were moments when I just wanted to reach inside the book and give him a hug. I especially liked that, while he was worried that Hector, the cute waiter where he works, might want to hit on him, he’s kind about it, because he doesn’t want to hurt Hector’s feelings when he turns him down. I wasn’t expecting that kind of sensitivity, and so it really impressed me.

The other characters are interesting in their own right. Jack, Danny’s dad, isn’t very mature for his age, and he’s struggling to figure out how to be the kind of parent Danny needs. I also really liked Hector, the aforementioned waiter, who just wants a deeper connection with someone than a quick one-night stand. And the girl Danny falls for is interesting, though she was somewhat harder to like, and I wasn’t really sure I bought that she and Danny really had chemistry.

That’s the one thing I can say didn’t work for me about this book. Everyone is happily ensconced in a romantic relationship in the end, and it felt a bit too neat and kind of pat. I like romance, don’t get me wrong, but not everyone in the book needed to necessarily be paired off.

The plot element that did work for me was actually surprising. Danny runs track–or did until his college track team was dismantled–and sports played a big part in the story. Mostly, sports books bore me, but I thought Wallace did a good job in conveying exactly why athletics are important to Danny and what he gets out of it.

The setting in the novel is also very strong. I’ve never been to Maine, and the only thing I know about Ogunquit is that that’s where Frannie Goldsmith came from in The Stand. Wallace makes it seem like an interesting place to visit in the summer, and this is the type of book that wouldn’t have been served just as well set anywhere else.

Final Thoughts: This would be a good book to read for the GLBT reading challenge. It’s got wonderful and relatable characters, and is a quiet, happy little story. I could have wished the end hadn’t been so pat, but otherwise, it was quite enjoyable.

Final Grade: B leaning toward a B+

Other Opinions:

I couldn’t find any. If you’ve read this book, leave a link to your review in the comments.